Lighting modules are used within luminaries to provide indoor or outdoor lighting solutions.
The energy which is supplied to a luminaire is dissipated as light, heat, and as electromagnetic interference (EMI) energy. Normally, the EMI energy is considered to be wasted energy dissipation, and magnetic shielding components are used to restrict radiation emission of EMI from a luminaire, and EMI filters are used to restrict the conducted emission of EMI.
This limits the efficiency of the luminaire in generating useful energy.
There is a trend for luminaries to become an integrated part of a more multifunctional and smarter lighting system, for example including sensors for automatic lighting control. To power these sensors and to provide wireless connectivity, battery operated devices are typically used, for reasons of system flexibility. Wireless batter operated devices can be positioned freely without the need for any particular wiring infrastructure. A battery requires periodic maintenance (for example every several months or years), and this provides a maintaining cost penalty to the implementation of a smart system having wireless sensors or other wireless components.
It is well known that in addition to wireless communications between devices, wireless power transfer is also possible. This typically requires a dedicated wireless power transmission system in one (power supplying) device and a dedicated wireless power harvesting system in the other (power receiving) device. This adds cost, volume and complexity to a system.
Visible light communication such as coded light is also promising. But there has not been an integration of both visible light communication and inductive transfer in the same lamp/luminaire.